In America, there is a growing separation between the "progressive movement" in its many manifestations and blue collar labor, and this widening gap is damaging everything from the environmental movement to America's economy. We need to realize that with these once inseparable factions, neither can move far divorced from the other.

Waylon Hedegaard has been a member of the Union Boilermakers for 23 years. He is a labor rights activist, an amateur historian of the labor movement and currently the President of the North Dakota AFL-CIO.